


What's the Difference Between Flying and Falling?

by noodlerdoodler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4375667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it anymore obvious?</p>
<p>(Inspired by All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

He's never seen anybody else up here before and considers it to be kind of a special place to him. A place for him to escape to, where everybody else won't notice him or just won't really care. He knows what they would think if they did see him up here again. "Sollux Captor is up on the roof again, contemplating his existence again, wondering it would feel to smack into the sidewalk and never feel anything ever again." He almost laughs at the thought as he climbs steadily up the stairs onto the roof and heads towards his usual spot where he likes to stand and loom over the edge. And he imagines the feeling of plummeting towards the ground so far away and thinks that if anything, it would feel like he was falling forever. Falling, falling, falling, never hitting the ground. 

He's used to spending mornings up here alone and so, he's surprised to see that he isn't the first person up here. A girl- a girl that he knows the name of but it escapes him right now- is standing in his regular place by the railing that tries to prevent students from throwing themselves off the top. He doesn't think he ever would, no matter how often he thinks about it. There would be something oddly depressing about being known as the kid that jumped off the school building. He'd much rather be known as the kid that threw himself off the top of the bell tower and fell eternally into nothing, he thinks. Everybody remembers the people that jumped off Niagara Falls or the San Francisco bridge but nobody remembers the kids that jumped off the school building. 

The girl doesn't turn to face him as he approaches but he notices that she is not in fact standing by the railing, as he originally thought. She has, in fact, climbed over the railing and is balancing on the very edge of the building. Her dark hair is flowing to the left in the wind, like a girl's in some painting he thinks he saw once, and it's whipping and waving and curling like it's alive and it's happy to be alive. Sollux can't relate. 

"You shouldn't jump." He advises but if she hears him, there's no visible sign of it. She doesn't jolt in surprise, which is probably good, because she might have fallen to her death then. And there's a big difference between intentionally falling and accidentally falling- one of them is a decision that builds up over time, the other is by mistake. Sollux thinks that people find it considerably harder to let go of people that killed themselves by mistake because it feels like their time came much too soon. But people that do it intentionally, nobody truly /mourns/ them. Everybody just wonders what was running through their head and what drove them to a point that they couldn't do this anymore. "This" being living. 

If any of these people stopped for a second to ask Sollux, who considered himself to be kind of an expert on the living/death thing, they would get a pretty decent answer about how people often have a lot going on in their heads that other people can't even begin to understand and that because people can't understand, they feel lonelier than somebody living on a solitary island. That's what it's like, he thinks, it's like being on some island far away from the rest of society. And boats pass by sometimes but they never reach the shore, for fear of being thrown onto the rocks. And the only communication he gets is like his own thoughts or radio static. Maybe if people talked to him and poked at his thoughts and ideas and actually cared what he thought, he wouldn't spend his "awake" days standing out here and thinking about falling. 

"There's no point doing it on Wednesday. You'll miss out on the pepperoni pizza in the cafeteria." She still doesn't show any sign of hearing him so he lets out a soft sigh and approaches her. Closer, he can recognise the tangle of hair and the old clothes that he's certain are hand-me-downs or from the thrift shop down the street from where he lives. Today, she's opted to wear a long red checked shirt that flows in the wind alongside her hair and her long shirt. The only part of her that's still is her dark shirt and the heaving torso that it clings to. She's breathing heavily, a look of emptiness and somehow distress on her face. Sollux knows her vaguely; she's Aradia Megido, he remembers, and he can't think how he knows her name but he's pretty sure that he's seen her hanging around the local graveyard once or twice. She's not like one of those emo kids either, she looks like she's there with a purpose. Like she belongs there or something. Sollux's heart burns. 

"I'm not going to jump." Her words surprise him and not just because he was expecting her to remain silent and ignore him or something. She's clinging to the railing with both hands but leaning forward as much as she dares, staring down at the people and their busy, busy, busy lives passing by far away underneath them. He's surprised because he didn't expect her voice to sound so alive and full of life, leaping around like an excitable song that he would maybe loop once or twice. Her fingers are turning whiter as she grips the railing. Her nails are painted a dark shade of red that he can only describe as rusty. They're also badly bitten. He was expecting her voice to shake. 

"That's probably a good decision." Sollux shrugs, "I only like to properly contemplate my suicide attempts on a Thursday." He could've sworn that he saw the corner of her lip curl up a little but the sun glances off her face as she turns to look at him, so it might have just been a trick of the light. For once, he understands how artists feel about the Mona Lisa. Is she smiling? Isn't she smiling? Does it even fucking matter? He doubts it somehow but this does. It matters if Aradia Megido smiles at him. 

"I'm a fan of Mondays, myself." Aradia's looking at him now and he can't tell if her soft smile/not-smile is deadly serious or jokey. He wonders if that's how people feel when they look at him and can't read the expression on his face and don't know if he's kidding about the stupid stuff he says. Half the time he, half the time he isn't. Two halves that don't quite match together to make a whole.

"So, what brings you out here to survey my glorious kingdom as dick munching assholes?" He gestures to the fellow idiots that attend their school, who are mooching about outside. He knows very few of these people but an awful lot of them know him as the kid that nobody convinces not to jump. Also, as the kid that is prone to mood swings and constantly flipping his shit if somebody dares to piss him off. Sollux flipping his shit is truly a sight to behold. 

"Oh. You know. Today is a very special day for me." Aradia looks more hesitant about balancing perilously on the edge the longer he looks at her. And he finds it hard to believe that she's managing to keep up a string of conversation with somebody other than herself, when the possibility of death is all but staring her in the face. Clearly, she's used to the feeling that she's about to die. Sollux is too, it almost becomes like a high after a while. But something can only be enjoyable for so long before it becomes boring and he has to look for something else to do. Maybe one day he'll actually jump just for the hell of it. 

"Oh, really?" He leans on the railing and stares out at the world spilling out in front of them, stares at the vast ocean that is a reality when he is awake and everything is alive around him, "Special in what way? A birthday, perhaps? I know that I like to spend my birthdays contemplating plummeting off the school building into the eternal abyss." This time, he's certain that he sees her lip quirk upwards, if only for a moment. Which would make sense because it seems, much like himself, Aradia is cool with discussing such things. Most people aren't, most people cringe away at the idea of death. But those that have come incredibly close to it, only just lurching away from being swallowed by those deadly jaws, are sometimes quite comfortable with the idea of it. His therapist is uncomfortable with talking about such things so Sollux tends to keep thoughts like that to himself. There's nobody else he could even begin to talk to about his feelings. 

"It's more like a death day." That confirms it, that Aradia has seen fear and then loss. In other words, she has lost somebody very close to her in the past to whatever comes after this life. She knows somebody that died.   
"Did you bake a cake?" Again, she turns to look at him and he knows for sure that she's smiling this time, her darkly painted lips stretched into a grin. Did he mention that her lips were painted black and her eyes lined with the same rust red? They were. And her earrings were shaped like tiny silver frogs. She was wearing no other jewellery. And she was beautiful in a quirky kind of not-beautiful way. 

"No, I can't say I did."   
"You should have." Sollux wants them to bake a cake on the day he dies. His old friend, Karkat, used to joke with him about the fact that they would eat honey cake and drink Red Bull at his funeral in memory. Because both of them understood that Sollux wasn't going to make it very long- statistics show that teenagers with his condition rarely do- and tried their hardest to make the most of the time that they had. That was before Karkat got better friends to hang out with and ditched him and now he hung around with Gamzee Makara and smoked by the school gates. He'd still offer an awkward wave but Sollux knew that he couldn't even call him an acquaintance anymore. 

His hands are twitching nervously at his side and he decides to take advantage of the situation, grabbing a hold of the railing. And he swings himself over onto the other side alongside her and he sees where her eyes are focused. Down, down, down on the ground seems a million miles away and he swallows nervously as he stares at where people are mulling around down there. He wonders why nobody has noticed that two kids are up here and realises, again, that nobody fucking cares. And then, he puts his feet down on the ledge but he nearly misses. For a moment, he thinks he's stepped too far and that he's going to fall all that way to the ground and whilst the idea of suicide is something he thinks about a lot, as he mentioned, he prefers to think that his death will be intentional. And he'd never do it on Wednesday. He inhales sharply and leans against the railing, steadying himself carefully. He's not going to fall, not yet. 

"So, who died?" He asked bluntly because she doesn't seem like the kind of person that would be bothered by the question. She doesn't hesitate before answering.   
"My spirit and faith in the American education system. Nobody has even noticed we're up here. So much for the school caring about it's students." She replies, her hands clenching and unclenching around the railing. She's shaking or maybe shivering as she stands there and Sollux wonders for the first time if she's stuck. Because, sure, she's got a determined look on her face and fierceness in her eyes and happiness in her voice but her body movements say otherwise. 

"Do you need help climbing back over?" He asked quietly and she nods without a word, closing her eyes tightly as she focuses on steadying her breathing. So, using one hand to keep himself in place, he takes her hand in his. Her palms are sweaty and slippery and he nearly lets her fall as he squeezes her hand tightly. And she squeezes back, her eyes still tightly shut and she doesn't look like the deep breathing thing is going very well. And then, he lets go of her hand and it returns to clinging to the railing. Instead, his hand goes to her leg and she's shaking with nerves as he helps her lift it over the railing. By this point, people have began to notice they're up there and are pointing and staring. Sollux ignores them because he's used to it and he can't lose his focus right now. Her other leg quickly follows and she stumbles back onto the roof, falling over with exhaustion. 

"That was fun!" She said, surprisingly brightly as she sat up.   
"I find putting my life at risk fun too." He dived over the railing after her and again, for just a second, he thinks he's misjudged it. He inhaled sharply, thinking that he was going to go flying off the edge and go splat on the sidewalk. Instead, he lands on his stomach on the roof and rolls up into a kneeling position smoothly.   
"Are you being completely serious?" She wondered aloud, as she got to her feet and brushed her long skirt off. He decides that he likes her skirt because it's old fashioned and looks like something a girl in a movie would wear. It's long and dreary and brown and covered in mud and holes but he decides that he likes it. It's not like he knows much about fashion anyway. He's wearing two different coloured sneakers and all green. 

"I'm nearly always completely serious." He replied, grinning widely like he often does during the "awake" days. During the "asleep" days, he has no idea if he grins but he doesn't think he would be smiling. The "asleep" is like being dead but he's still up and moving around- just about- and he's not literally asleep. He finds it hard to describe so he doesn't try. It's not like anybody would understand anyway.   
"I can tell that you're a very serious person." She smiled back at him, "Very sane too. You only meet the sanest of people standing on top of roofs every other morning." He wonders for a brief second if she knows how often he's standing up there and staring both out at the world and down into the nothing. He can't explain his strange fixation with that. The staring down into nothing thing not the other one. But she's still smiling kindly, so she can't have seen him. If she knew who she was, she wouldn't be smiling like that. 

"I'm Sollux Captor." He held out a hand to her and she took it, her hands still sweating and shaking, "I think I'm in one of your classes or something. I don't know."   
"I'm Aradia Megido." She took his hand and shook it firmly, before dropping her hand back to her side. She brushed a strand of dark hair back behind her ear and just stands there, staring into his soul with her brown eyes. They're so brown that they're almost black and he feels like he could be swallowed by them, enveloped into a kind of darkness different than the one he thinks death brings. He couldn't have told you for sure what death brings, not right there and then. But he'd be able to tell you a few months later.   
"Aren't you the kid that took two months off sick?" She mused, looking him over.   
"Yeah, I got sick." He said, because it's the only way he can describe the "asleep" to somebody that knows nothing about him or his fucked up brain or the way everything works. 

"Didn't you used to have piercings? And wear all black?" She asked and this time, she walks around him and looks him over. And he knows that she's taking in the sight of his decision to wear all green. He made this decision on Monday and has been wearing the same clothes since; he doesn't own a whole lot of green clothing.   
"I change my mind a lot." It's an understatement but it'll work well enough. He can't care to explain that yes, he used to be the emo kid. And before that, he was the kid that wore three different hoodies and torn up jeans. And before that, he was one of the kids that smoked cigarette and stuck gum under the tables. And before that, he wore light colours and took Polaroids and listened to Indie bands. And how week after week, he feels like a new and different person and it's bright and new and exciting. Until he gets bored of being Hipster Sollux or Cool Sollux or whatever and realises that he was never that person. And he changes his mind again and makes himself an entirely new person. 

"Cool." She said, as if she actually thought it was but he can see the confusion in her eyes, "Hey, Sollux Captor, I know we just met and all. But my friend got sick and I've got nobody to take to see one of my favourite bands." He suspects Indie Sollux would have jumped at the chance but he just shrugs at her.   
"No offence and all but that's not really my scene. Anymore." But he hastily added, "But if you would like to see what it's truly like to look at everything, you should meet me by the gates at two." That means skipping algebra, which Sollux is all for.   
"Cool." She repeated, genuinely this time. And the light was bright in her eyes. 

And that was how Sollux Captor won his first date with Aradia Megido.


	2. After

She's never cried for anyone before and she's surprised that the boy she met three or four months ago is the very first. After all, she hadn't cried for her father because he was long gone before she was old enough to realise that something was wrong and she hadn't cried for her mother because she'd been in a state of shock. After all, she hadn't been able to register what was going on as she was dragged out of the wreckage of their car and pushed into her sister's arms. And she'd still been in the hospital, so she couldn't go to the funeral. Her life just kinda went on without her mother. In fact, she'd never gone to either of their funerals so she supposes that this is her very first. The event is as gloomy as it promises, everyone's eyes wary and their mouths dry the same way most people act when it comes to suicide. Sollux told her once that nobody likes to talk about suicide because nobody can comprehend what it really means. She wonders if even then, he had the entire thing planned and was already thinking about "falling forever" as he'd delicately put it. She often wonders if she'd planned it or if it was a spur of the moment decision to throw himself off a building. She wouldn't be surprised, he made a lot of quick decisions like that. 

Which is why she was confused upon when Sollux's suicide was first announced and everyone said it was such a surprise because he was such a happy child. And she'd been confused because everybody that had apologised for her loss had seen him up on the roof day after day but none of them had ever told him to step back away from the edge. She doesn't dare say this to anyone because most people are already thinking the same thing, she thinks, that they could have done something. They could have done something but she was the only that tried. And she'd failed for reasons she guesses she'll never know. 

When people refer to Sollux's death as a tragic loss of a bright young life, she is almost angry with them because he would have hated to hear them talk like that. It was true that Sollux had been incredibly smart, of course, and had been bright. He'd been bright in the same way that the stars are bright, the same way that street lamps are bright. He was bright in a way that meant he burned steadily day after day and lit up the world around him for everybody else. But he wasn't really happy, deep down. She knew this before unlike all the other people at this funeral, she'd talked to him, understood him and fallen in and out of love with him constantly. The first few days had been rocky in and out of love until she realised that she couldn't stop thinking about him. Falling in love with Sollux was her own equivalent of falling off the top of the bell tower, she supposes, and it's all she says when people ask her how she feels. People tend to back away after she says that. 

She can still remember their first date when they skipped out of school and he took her up the bell tower despite the fact that it was old and rickety and they weren't meant to be up there. Sollux wasn't a stickler for rules and he encouraged Aradia to ignore them too, to fly free instead of letting herself be trapped in the cage society built around people like her. They'd stood on top of the bell tower and it was like being on top of the world.   
"It's like flying!" Aradia had grinned, stretching out her arms and leaning as far as she could over the edge. One thing she loved about Sollux was that he never grabbed hold of her or tried to keep her away from the edges like everyone else did after her mom died. They loved to risk everything for the thrill of it.   
"It's like falling!" Sollux had replied with the same enthusiasm, "It's like falling into the forever!" She didn't know exactly what he meant but she thought it was whimsical. They spent time up there regularly after that and they even shared their first kiss there, a week later. And her favourite time was when they'd danced up there together to silent music, dancing on the edge of life the way they always did. She did not know at the time that Sollux would spend his last moments up there too, the same way that he always said that he would. She wondered if when dancing with her there, he'd already known that he would jump off the building a few weeks later. 

She supposes, she says when she's speaking at the funeral, that Sollux was one of the wisest people that she had ever known. He knew that death was inevitable and worked hard to make sure that every moment he had left was worth it. She thinks that he thought of his suicide the same way most people would think of dying of an illness. He knew that it would happen and he was prepared for it, counting down the days until the day he knew he would die. Or kill himself, however you want to put it. And she thinks that he only realised himself on the day and that's why his note was so hastily scribbled out and tossed to the wind, for her to find a week later under the bench in the park. She isn't even sure that he ever meant for her to find it but the fates strung it together that way to make it easier for her. She remembers finding the note and smiling through her tears because she remembered what Sollux was like. What he is like. Death doesn't change a person. 

She thinks that Sollux was not only the wisest person she had ever met but also one of the kindest. For all his faults and mistakes, he cared about her a great deal, no matter who he was being that week. And for all he let her fly free, he never let her fall. He held her hand as lightly as one would hold a butterfly as he helped her climb over the security gates into abandoned buildings. He never let her get hurt and always put band-aids on her knee when she scraped it. He'd help her sort out the maps as they explored and looked for ancient artfact. And he played her pretend games as they ran around the town together, wanting to be everywhere and everything at once. He was there and bright and wonderful and so, so, so alive until he just wasn't anymore. His light burned out. 

Aradia isn't too sure how she knew but the feeling of dread that settled over her when he didn't turn up to walk her to school made her almost certain that she'd lost him. After working for months to convince him to stay and he was gone, just like that. It reminded her how easily people could be taken away. Everybody said he was sick, he was away, he was skipping but she knew that he would have told her. She knew that it was too late and he was dead. So, when an assembly was called, she wasn't surprised. And she didn't so much as flinch when everybody turned to see if she was crying. She just sat there, her hands in her lap, and realised that she'd let him go. She'd let him fall. How could she let go of him for even a second? 

It wasn't until later that the anger and frustration would set in, making her scream in fury because she thought that they were getting somewhere. When they explored the town, when they played in the snow, when they balanced perilously on edges and when they made love in the back of the crappy car that she'd borrowed from her sister for the night. And when they'd laid there afterwards and looked up at the sky through the sunroof, Sollux pointing out the constellations to her, and how her chest had throbbed the whole time because she was so glad to be with him. And when he'd driven her home because she was exhausted and tucked her into bed and crawled in beside her. And when he'd woken up her up the next morning with a smile and told her that they were going on an adventure to the nearby river. And when he'd gone home at the end of the day, promising to see her tomorrow. And she'd been so happy, like she was flying with the birds, so happy that he seemed so happy. Happy that maybe forever could exist and maybe Sollux was the one that would unlock it for her. And that they could keep dancing on that edge until the end of time. 

But he hadn't come to see her tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day. Because he was dead and she was alone without anybody to love and she didn't think that she could fall in love ever again. And as she finishes her speech, she tells everybody about how Sollux never was any of the people that he pretended to be and he knew it himself. He wasn't any of those people but he was desperately searching to see who he could be. Which one of the Sollux's was the real one. But, she guesses, she never found him. Or maybe he did and the one true Sollux is now dead. Every single person in the room is utterly silent as she moves to sit down beside her sister. Her sister pats her on the arm, the language barrier probably meaning that she didn't understand any of that. 

She knows that she's drawing even more eyes than she was earlier, which is saying something. As Sollux's ex-girlfriend, only girlfriend, only love he ever had time to have, she's already attracted more than one or two pitiful looks. Not to mention, she's turned up to a funeral wearing her everyday clothes and the necklace that he gave her hanging around his neck. It was only a silly trinket that he'd given her, something he said he'd found in a cereal box and tied around her neck. And she knew it was dumb but it meant the world to her because it was such a Sollux thing to do. To give her a necklace with a plastic bee hanging on it and say that it was from a box of honey flavoured cereal that he loved. 

She's not the only to make a speech at the funeral; Sollux's dads take it in turns to speak about how much they loved and had struggled to understand their son, one of them crying and the other one looking very solemn about the whole affair; a girl called Terezi Pyrope stands up and tells them about all the stupid things she'd done with Sollux when they were younger and it's a surprisingly long list, which Aradia finds herself giggling at; and finally, Karkat Vantas of all people takes his place up there and manages to apologise once before collapsing into tears. That shocks everyone, since nobody has ever seen him cry before. And he keeps apologising, almost frantically until his brother goes up there to carry him back to his seat, Karkat protesting the whole way. By the time the funeral ends, Aradia has a kind of metallic taste in her mouth, so she heads over to the casket. Everybody else seems kind of distracted by the sandwiches and nobody sees her shuffling over there and standing over it. 

It's so strange to think that Sollux's body is here and that he isn't falling anymore, he's just laying still. He would have hated to hear all this talk about him, if he was here. Or maybe he wouldn't. Perhaps he'd be delighted to have everybody say good things about him. She doesn't know because after hearing everyone talk, she thinks, that like her, everybody knew a different Sollux. Nobody's Sollux is the same as hers and she begins to wonder if she really did know him or if she just knew another layer of him. She wonders if anyone knew the real Sollux. She wonders if even he really knew and she doesn't think that he does. She runs a finger along the smooth casket, wondering what he looks like under there. He fell a long way and smacked face first into the pavement, so he can't look too good. But she likes to pretend that he looks the same way he did the last time she saw him. 

Bright eyed and messy haired and kissing her and promising that he would see her tomorrow. Lying on top of her on the bank beside the river, both of them soaking wet and grinning like total idiots. His long fingers tangled in her mess of hair, tugging on it eagerly as he kissed her enthusiastically. He always was eager and enthusiastic and just... Overexcited. When he wasn't moping that was. Some days, he was incredibly miserable and she didn't dare approach him. Sometimes, he only looked upset, staring down at the ground, until he saw that she was looking. Then, he'd grin. But he'd never say what was on his mind or what he did when she wasn't there. He wouldn't even explain what he was doing on the numerous sick days that he took but he came back looking exhausted and upset. 

But when they'd made love to each other in the back of Damara's car, he'd been eager. They'd been kissing furiously beforehand and had to clamber into the backseat, so they could rub their bodies desperately against each other. They were both needy, desperate for friction, first timers together. And she remembers them giggling about what a pair of virgins they were, as she straddled his lap and she pulled him in close. They'd struggled with stripping their clothes off, Sollux failing at tugging her shirt off and she got tangled in it for seven whole minutes. And they'd both been laughing as he struggled to undo her bra, his fingers fumbling desperately with the straps. In the end, she'd have to reach back and take it off herself and he'd stuck his tongue out her, proclaiming that he was "just getting there! God!". And she'd struggled to kiss him because she was laughing and his cold fingers tickled against the skin of her back. 

That's how she wants to remember him, trying desperately to be romantic but laughing too hard as he struggles with her clothes. She wants to remember him as the guy that complained about the lack of belt loops on her skirt because it made it harder for him to pull it off. She wants to remember him as the guy that brought her flowers and trinkets and showed her the world for what it is. She wants to remember how he showed her the stars and danced with her in the same place he'd throw himself off a few months later. She wants to remember that he was okay with all of this, she wants to remember that he wanted to fall forever, he wanted this. She wants to remember how the boy that wanted to fall taught her to fly. She kisses her finger and presses it to the lid of the coffin before walking away and promising that she'd remember him for the wonderful boyfriend that he was. Not for the bullshit other people are saying about him. 

And that was how Aradia Megido said her last goodbye to Sollux Captor.


End file.
